Automatic call distributors (ACDs) are specialized systems designed to match incoming requests for service, for example a telephone call or an e-mail, with a resource that is able to provide that service, for example a human call center agent. ACDs generally perform one or more of the following functions: (i) recognize and answer incoming calls; (ii) review database(s) for instructions on what to do with a particular call; (iii) using these instructions, identify an appropriate agent and queue the call, often times providing a prerecorded message; and (iv) connect the call to an agent as soon as the agent is available.
Agents in call centers utilizing ACDs receive incoming customer calls routed to them by the ACD, or they place call center related calls to customers. In either case, whenever an agent is engaged in a call center call, the ACD system marks him as being in a “talking” state. Once the agent is identified to be in a talking state, the ACD system will not transfer any new ACD calls to the agent. Agents are expected to be available for ACD or call center incoming and outgoing calls when they are “on the job.”
Call centers need to provide cost effective agent staffing in an environment in which requirements may be seasonal in nature or where special skills may be required. For example, many organizations hire more customer service representatives (CSRs or agents) between October and January to handle the increased volume of holiday shopping, processing of insurance claims or an increased load of signing up new subscribers at the end of the calendar year. Additionally, some skilled resources such as medical transcriptionists may be in short supply in a particular geographic area, and a hospital may opt to hire teleworkers. The costs avoided by the enterprise in office floor space alone can be significant. With the proliferation of broadband access (both wired and wireless) there is an increased demand for call center deployments where agents work from home. In many cases voice quality over the Internet is a concern that must be addressed.
Quality of service and call admission control services are readily available over enterprise LANs but are not as available over the Internet. Some service providers offer service level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee nominal packet loss and jitter, however the cost of these services is prohibitive for particular organizations. Some systems include means for measuring network parameters that affect voice quality over broadband connections and removing agents whose phones may exhibit poor voice quality from the pool of available agents. Network parameters may be monitored during an actual VoIP telephone call or by using synthetic traffic. If the voice quality degrades for a particular teleagent, the teleagent may be removed from the pool of available agents until voice quality improves. Alternatively the voice quality of each teleagent may be ranked according to the service provided. However, the degradation of voice quality is transient in nature, and the fact that voice quality is low at a given time is a poor predictor of the voice quality, for example, three seconds later. In addition, measuring the quality of a WAN between the agent at home and a plurality of ingress gateways may not be practical.